singing praises to the King of glory!

Psalm 71:19-23
Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.
I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.
My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed.

Looks like Dan and I are heading south tomorrow! I will be down there for a few days to take care of some family business and come back on Sunday with Dan for his Monday appointment with the doctor to hopefully completely remove one drain!
We are seeing progress!!!!!!! Hallelujah! Thank you LORD!


monday, february 22, 2010

Getting close
Today my mom and I went to Stanford (Ash is back in LA for school). It was nice to have the doctor give some good news.
:)
I had a CT scan to check for fluid buildup (you remember from last time that that is a bad thing). It was a long wait, and I felt like cacapupu because my wound was hurting and I had gotten very little sleep. Then I had to drink contrast (which tastes nasty) [sidenote: in the hospital I had drank it mixed in gatorade and it was not great, but they mixed it with water and it wasn't too bad. weird] ANYWAY the CT turned out great! I went back to the doctor right after the scan and he told me so. Then he switched my ugly gross grenades to sleek and sexy drainage bags I can strap to my thigh like a secret agent, and then he pulled on my drains for the second to last time (apparently they are right by the skin- hence 'getting close'). It hurt like crazy. I could barely take a step with my right leg. So I'm taking it easy right now.

So here's the plan: watch the drains to make sure they don't go crazy, and if they don't by Wednesday... EAT! I'm excited. I have an appointment next week, where he'll pull out (like, all the way out) one of my drains if everything goes well. The next week, he'll pull the other one out (if all goes well). Oh, did I mention I am free to go home? To La Mirada? Because I am! I just have to make sure the home health people have their ducks in a row (which they should), then my mom will drive me down, probably on Wednesday, and I'll be home and my mom will take care of some business at my grandma's house. So... yeah.

There are a couple hitches: my wound, which has been stitched up by my dad so it's almost all together, has some problems. a) it hurts more because the sutures are pulling on me, b) it's not coming together in exactly the right way, and c) it is more of an infection risk than the wound vac. So sometime, some or all of the sutures have to come out and the wound vac will be put in again, because the two (sutures and vacs) don't coexist well. Some of the progress made will be retained, so it's not a total loss. But wound vacs are more annoying, and still painful.
Hitch 2 is that we're trying to get an appointment on a non-Monday so Ash can go. It's really hard because Monday is his only official clinic day but it's also Ashley's biggest class day. However, he had said that he could squeeze us in on a different day if we needed to, so we're pushing for Tuesday. Other than those and my pain (which has lessened but still really hurts), things are good. God is good. Mysterious, but good. He is not a vending machine or Santa Claus. I don't know what he's up to, letting me suffer when he could have healed me, but there are so many horrible things in life that turn around for the good. One day, I will know. Until then, I am his, because he is God, and I .... am not.

Pray for:
drains to continue being low so I can eat! (and to stay low if I do start eating)
home health agency to work efficiently to allow me to get back to LA
fast-working and well-working wound vac
pain to die down